


No Going Back

by GinnyBadWolf



Series: So This is How it Ends [5]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: AU - GTA V, After Michael's Heist, Angst, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 05:05:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6739228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinnyBadWolf/pseuds/GinnyBadWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Michael's Heist, there are still two left. One of them is a murderer and the other is their almost-boyfriend. All their friends are dead. How does it play out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Going Back

The sunset is a sight to behold. Michael watches the sun as it slides beneath the ocean slowly, and darkness creeps on the edges of the world. It’s beautiful. It signals the end of the day, the end of an era. 

The night is beginning, and Michael has been oh-so-ready for it. 

He tears his eyes away from the gold and blue horizon and looks to where he stands. A boat - and a nice one, too - with blood tinting the sides and a scared man sitting behind. There are tear tracks coating his face, and the slightest tremor can be detected in his hands. Gavin. 

The waves rock the boat gently. Michael looks at Gavin closely, taking in every detail of his curled-up form, but it doesn’t really register. This is the person who he’s grown the closest to, by far, and the one he cares about more than he’s willing to say. But the adrenaline and the anticipation has washed it away, and the warmth has settled below the sea. Anticipation and ambition has no room for love.

Gavin’s eyes are looking elsewhere. Michael doesn’t want to follow his line of sight, because he knows it’ll take him some place he doesn’t want to look. And Michael is too busy looking at Gavin, trying to figure him out. Gavin has always been confusing, and Michael has to sort him out in the next minute or so before it’s too late. 

“It’s a yes or no, Gav. I don’t really care what you say, because whatever your answer is, I’m trying anyway.” 

Gavin shakes his head, and that frustrates Michael. Yes, or no? He has to tip the answer in his favor while he still can, though. 

“They were tragedies just waiting to happen, Gav. I told them my plan and they laughed! Said I was crazy! Fuck ‘em.” Michael kicks the seat his standing next to, and it gives a loud ‘bang’. A sharp pain shoots through Michael’s foot, but it’s nothing compared to everything he’s ever been through. Gavin only winces, and Michael needs to get him on his side, so he changes his demeanor. “Look, we’ll just get the boat and leave, and start later in the week. I have guys who can get me shit when I need it, so we’ll be ready by then.” 

Gavin looks up with some sort of unknown feeling burning in his eyes, and Michael realizes he may have somehow made the wrong move. “God, listen to yourself! Do you actually think three people can pull that off?! Michael, this is the reason? You killed our friends for a half-arsed attempt at taking over the city?!” 

The jab enrages him, and Michael takes a step forward. Half-assed? Half-assed? He’s spent countless hours slaving over this plan, to make it perfect, and make it right. What does Gavin take him for, a dumb, lazy slob? “It’ll work! Those - those ‘friends’ would have stopped me! Stopped us!” 

“Because they aren’t fucking dumbasses! They have - no, had - common sense!”

So that’s what he thinks of him. “It’ll fucking work because I say it will!” He cracks his knuckles, and then stomps over and sits next to Gavin. He flinches, and Michael smirks slightly. So, despite Gavin’s bravado, he’s still afraid. Michael can use that. “It has to work - we’ve gotten this far.” 

Gavin’s face turns bitter and he scoots away. “What’s with this ‘we’? Why do you assume we’re a ‘we’?” Michael moves a little closer, but Gavin shoves him away. Somehow, that shove hurts more than anything else. Gavin doesn’t want to be with him. Gavin doesn’t want to be close to him. It doesn’t sound like Gavin even wants to know him. 

Michael went through so much trouble to keep Gavin alive. He... well, he fucking loves Gavin. He needs Gavin, not just for his plan, but because Gavin is the water to his fire. Gavin calms him down, balances him out, makes him better. Gavin is his other half, he thinks sometimes. And now his other half is rejecting him. 

It’s not as if Gavin even knows of these feelings, so Michael lets his words go unsaid. Instead, he shares a look with Gavin and answers nonchalantly - however fake that tone may be. “I killed all the other choices, man. You’re the only person I’ve got left besides Lindsay, who’s only in this for the money and then she’s gone. You’re stuck with me, Gav.” He wishes he could say that the last sentence made Gavin smile, but it incites only a frown. 

He lays a hand on Gavin’s shoulder, and ignores the slight tremble that Gavin gives at his sudden touch. “Look, I went through a lot to keep you alive. I expended a lot of resources to make that happen.” Michael wants to keep going on about how Gavin is worth all of those things Michael went through.

But adrenaline changes his words and his motives, and instead he speaks in a playful tone. It comes out sounding a little more sadistic than he thought, though. “But... plans can change, right?” 

Michael finds himself pointing a handgun at the person he loves most in the world. For just a moment, he wonders how he managed to come to this, but the thought it shoved away for another time when weakness can be allowed. “I spent years figuring this plan out. What’s but a minor edit to a major scheme?” The words are disgusting flat out lies. To edit Gavin out of his scheme - out of his life - would be the most colossal mistake he can ever make. 

He doesn’t lower the gun. It is firm and steady in his hands; not a tremor can be detected. But his eyes tell a completely different story. They are filled with concern and fear, and perhaps some feelings Michael shouldn’t be feeling: love, and a need for forgiveness. Maybe by a fraction of an inch, the gun lowers. “Just... t-take a breath, okay?” Michael isn’t sure of who he is addressing - Gavin, or himself. 

Gavin opens his mouth to speak, but Michael can’t let him. Michael knows that if Gavin talks, he’ll be lured out of his ambition. Ambition has no room for love, and that’s why Gavin can’t speak. “Nooooooooooope. No. Nuh uh. We’ve moved past talking. There’s nothing more you can say that I want to hear. Take. A. Breath. When you let it out, I’m going to start a countdown from ten. You have til then to answer... are you with me? Or against me?” 

Ending it with a time limit has wonderful merits. It’s quick, decisive, and keeps the momentum going. He doesn't give Gavin time to steel himself for a believable lie. The pressure keeps Gavin focused on values, while it leaves little time for Michael to be distracted by them. His moral compass is shot to shit, he’s on the line to crossing true Mad King levels of madness, and Gavin holds the answer to how far he is going to have to sink to make his plans a reality.

He doesn’t really stop to think about how he might be putting a time limit on Gavin’s life. 

Gavin does what his captor has requested, and takes a deep breath. 

Suddenly, Michael gets nervous. Something feels wrong, or different. Everything seems slower, more sluggish - like time has slowed itself down, like it’s giving him a mental pause. His mind works fine, just as quickly as always. But his body moves with the rest of the world. He hears Gavin slowly let out his breath, and feels himself say the number ‘ten’. 

The countdown has started, but it’s going to be prolonged. Michael has time now. Not a lot, mind you (the number nine comes rolling by all too soon), but it’s enough. He can feel it. With all human minds, time brings second thoughts, different perspectives... regrets. 

He’s fucked.

A pain wells inside him as he thinks that he’ll - he can never get to have that drink with Geoff. They’d made plans to go out for a cold brew, over which they might discuss the next operation. Plans that are never going to be fulfilled now.

He can never go to the shooting range again with Ray. They have - no, had - a little corner by the back of the range where they always shot at this one goddamn fucking tree that looked like it should have fallen over years ago. It’ll never be the same without Ray. 

He can never marvel at Ryan’s utter insanity again. Ryan has - no, no, had, fucking past tense - this mad laugh that he laughs whenever he’s about to do something crazy. He’ll never hear it again. Michael has silenced it.

He can never just hang out with Jack again. Sometimes Michael wakes up early, and Jack is already awake and making breakfast for everybody. They sometimes talk - no, talked - about things they’ve done and laugh about it, waking everybody else up. Those mornings will never be there for Michael anymore. 

He can never laugh at Kerry again. Kerry’s always been funny - whether it’s cracking a joke or doing something ridiculous or running in circles for no reason - and now Michael can’t see him again. Michael’s laugh will never be the same.

He can never hold hands with Gavin ever again. Sometimes, when they’re playing video games, Gavin will wrap his fingers around Michael’s. It’s completely illogical for playing games, but neither one of them care. And during heists - when it’s dangerous - they’ll reach out for each other. Michael isn’t sure if it ever meant anything to Gavin, but he’ll never know now. Gavin hates him. 

Fuck Gavin. In fact, fuck all of them! Fuck em' all to hell! These kinds of thoughts aren't worth a shit anymore. He has his plan, he has his goals, he’s mother fuckin' Mogar! He owns this city! How dare they fill him with remorse! How dare they! How dare they... make him feel like such a piece of shit.

He's somehow made it to three without it so much as registering to him. It’s like experiencing a sort of autopilot that keeps him on the right path. Keeps him following the plan.

 

Though, the plan... is starting to feel null to him. He can feel its grasp on him slipping. There doesn't really feel like a need for the plan anymore. The drive is gone, slipped into the void it had crawled out from. 

There was a point at which Michael has stopped counting. Michael doesn’t know when he passed it, but he has, and now the world seems to come back in real time. “T-Two... Oh, god.” The gun falls from his hands and clatters on the deck. A sob threatens to come out of his chest, as he realizes just what it is he has done. 

He sinks, slowly, onto the cushion, and rests his hands on the side of the boat. His head is bent down, and he shakes without control. Tears prick at the corner of his eyes. 

He nearly jumps when he feels a hand at his back, giving him a light pat. He’s not expecting Gavin’s comfort, especially not when Gavin gives him a small hug. “Micool...” No forgiveness, no ‘it’s alright’, no nothing. Good, that’s what he deserves. 

Gavin kicks the gun, and it slides against the floor and hits the other side of the boat. Neither of them have a thirst for any more blood today. 

Michael gains a little bit of his composure back, and rubs the bottom of his palms against his eyes. “I just... I don’t know, Gav. I wanted more. We only have so much time in life, and I just w-wanted to make the most of it. I wanted to be huge, I wanted to rule the fuckin’ world, but I... I can’t keep goin’, man.” He holds his head in his hands and groans. “I’m sorry.” 

Gavin rubs his hand up and down Michael’s back. “I know, mate. We’ll.... We’ll figure out what to do. We’ll make a new plan, and do it together, eh?” Gavin smiles gently, and Michael looks up. The setting sun frames Gavin’s face, making him look warm and bright against the dark canvas. 

“Together?” Michael says. He looks into Gavin’s eyes, and in that moment, something is shared. There is no name for it - just something. Gavin does not yet trust Michael again, and Michael knows he does not deserve that trust for a while, but they still have each other if not trust. 

“Together,” Gavin says, and Michael believes it. 

The sun sets below the horizon, finally disappearing, and Michael buries his head under Gavin’s neck. 

There is no room for love in ambition, but Michael will make it that way because he says so. Because Gavin deserves a place in the future they’ll rebuild for themselves.


End file.
